Household archaeology of the Classic Period Lowland Maya

2020 ◽  
pp. 389-406
Author(s):  
Nancy Gonlin
Keyword(s):  
Household Archaeology ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Lowland Maya

The Sociopolitical Economy of an Ancient Maya Village: Cerén and its Sacbe

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Payson Sheets ◽  
Christine Dixon ◽  
David Lentz ◽  
Rachel Egan ◽  
Alexandria Halmbacher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Household Archaeology ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Research Focus ◽  
Sociopolitical Organization ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
The Village

The intellectual, artistic, and architectural accomplishments of Maya elites during the Classic period were extraordinary, and evidence of elite activities has preserved well in the archaeological record. A centuries-long research focus on elites has understandably fostered the view that they controlled the economy, politics, and religion of Maya civilization. While there has been significant progress in household archaeology, unfortunately the activities, decisions, and interactions of commoners generally preserve poorly in the archaeological record. Therefore, it has been challenging to understand the sociopolitical economy of commoners, and how it related—or did not relate—to elite authority. The exceptional volcanic preservation of the site of Cerén, El Salvador, provides a unique opportunity to explore the degree to which elites controlled or influenced commoner life. Was society organized in a top-down hierarchy in which elites controlled everything? Or did commoners have autonomy, and thus the authority to decide quotidian, seasonal, and annual issues within the village? Or was there a mixture of different loci of authority within the village and the region? Research at Cerén is beginning to shed some light on the sociopolitical economy within the community and in relation to elites in the Zapotitan valley. A domain in which there was considerable commoner-elite interaction in the Cerén area was the marketplace. Elites and their attached specialists provided products, and commoners decided which marketplace they would attend to exchange their items. Evidence from Cerén also suggests that there were numerous other domains of authority within the community that had no detectable control or influence from outside. For instance, people in the village decided what crafts or specialized agricultural products to produce as surplus to be exchanged within the community for different products from other households. Cerén community members acted independently as individuals, as households, or in other domains within the community. Understanding the multiple layers of authority at Cerén sheds light on the sociopolitical organization in one non-elite Classic period Maya community.

MAYA HETERARCHY AS INFERRED FROM CLASSIC-PERIOD PLAZA PLANS

2004 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Joseph Becker
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Rural Settlement ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Lowland Maya

Recognition of architectural patterning among groups of structures at lowland Maya sites dating from the Classic period provides insights into the ways that residences and ritual complexes were organized. Each structured group arrangement, or Plaza Plan (PP), reveals an architectural grammar that provides the database enabling us to predict urban as well as rural settlement patterns. Wide variations in sizes among examples of residential PPs suggests that heterarchy was an important aspect of Classic Maya society. Examination of PP2 at Tikal indicates that a heterarchic pattern of organization existed. Heterarchy may relate to the fragility of the structure of lowland Maya kingship, and this may explain the gradual demise of states during the Terminal Classic and Postclassic periods and their replacement by re-emergent Maya chiefdoms.

RETHINKING CLASSIC LOWLAND MAYA POTTERY CENSERS

1999 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prudence M. Rice
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Divine Kingship ◽  
Terminal Classic Period ◽  
Lowland Maya

Classic lowland Maya censers can be described in terms of two general categories, image (or effigy) and non-image. The function and meaning of these incensarios is approached through consideration of their embellishment, symbolism, and contexts of use and recovery. It is suggested that in Peten and some adjacent areas, Classic image censers were part of the paraphernalia of divine kingship, associated with termination rituals and a royal funerary cult. Non-image and particularly spiked censers were more associated with birth/renewal, earth, rain, and calendrical rituals involving fire drilling. Their use became widespread in the lowlands during the Terminal Classic period, with the “collapse” of divine kingship and elite power.

THE FORMATIVE TO CLASSIC PERIOD TRANSITION AT IZAPA: UPDATES FROM THE IZAPA HOUSEHOLD ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca R. Mendelsohn
Keyword(s):  
Household Archaeology ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Alternative Proposal

AbstractIn southern Mesoamerica, the period between 100 b.c. and a.d. 400 saw both the apogee and fall of several powerful Formative-period cities. Previous reports have suggested that conquest from the southeast may have prompted a unique decline at Izapa around 100 b.c., when many neighboring cities were prospering. Over the last five years, new archaeological data has emerged for the Formative to Classic period transition at Izapa. The present work summarizes these updates and highlights recent deposits excavated during the Izapa Household Archaeology Project. These updates raise questions about the Hato-phase intrusion hypothesis proposed by Lowe and colleagues (1982). I close with an alternative proposal that, beginning around 100 b.c., increased network participation and a change in the institution of kingship produced some of the dramatic changes in ceramics and burial patterns observed at the site.

Houses on a Hill: Classic Period Life at El Palmillo, Oaxaca, Mexico

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary M. Feinman ◽  
Linda M. Nicholas ◽  
Helen R. Haines
Keyword(s):  
Household Archaeology ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
Present Sample ◽  
Household Level ◽  
Chipped Stone ◽  
Valley Of Oaxaca ◽  
Wall Construction

The increasing attention devoted to the investigation of prehispanic houses in Mesoamerica owes much theoretically and methodologically to the early household archaeology undertaken decades ago in the Valley of Oaxaca. Yet despite the large sample of Formative period houses excavated in this region, little is known about domestic life during the later Classic and Postclassic periods. In this paper we broaden the database of Classic period houses by reporting on excavations on five residential terraces at El Palmillo, one of many large hilltop terraced sites in the valley that collectively housed as much as two-thirds of the region"s Classic period population. Occupied for centuries, the terraces and their associated domestic compounds at El Palmillo underwent a series of coordinated episodes of wall construction, repair, and spatial modification. Craft activities-especially the production of chipped stone tools and maguey fiber for cordage and cloth-were an important part of domestic life. The relative importance of these different household economic activities varied from terrace to terrace, indicating that domestic production was specialized and operated at the household level. Maguey and other xerophytic plants also provided important subsistence resources. Differences in access to nonlocal goods have been documented between terraces, although the extent of such variation is not marked in the present sample. Although preliminary, the El Palmillo findings provide a new empirical basis from which to examine domestic life and the economic and organizational foundations of Classic period hill-top terraced settlements in Oaxaca. These findings reflect on larger issues about the basic economy of later prehispanic Mesoamerica and the articulation of domestic units and household production into larger socioeconomic networks that theoretically extended well beyond ancient Oaxaca.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE FORMATIVE TO CLASSIC PERIOD TRANSITION AT IZAPA: A REEVALUATION

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca R. Mendelsohn
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Modeling ◽  
Household Archaeology ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Cross Dating ◽  
Ams Dates ◽  
Temporal Overlap

The site of Izapa, though famous for its unique “Izapan” style monuments, has lagged behind many other Mesoamerican centers in archaeological research. As revisions of important Mesoamerican chronologies are underway, Inomata and colleagues (2014) have questioned whether monument production at Izapa has been misplaced chronologically. This article applies new data from the Izapa Household Archaeology Project to assess Inomata and colleagues’ (2014) proposal for a shift in the chronology at Izapa. It specifically assesses the chronology for the Formative to Classic period transition at Izapa, from 100 BC to AD 400, with new excavation data, ceramic cross-dating, and Bayesian modeling of AMS dates from the southern periphery of the site. These data generally support the chronology developed by Gareth Lowe following the 1960s excavations at the site, though a temporal overlap appears possible for the Terminal Formative Hato and Itstapa ceramic complexes. Although results do not support Inomata and colleagues’ proposal for a shift in the Izapa chronology, ceramic cross-ties proposed between the Hato phase at Izapa and the Verbena phase at Kaminaljuyu support Inomata and colleagues’ (2014) revision for the chronology of Kaminaljuyu.

THE HIATUS AT TIKAL, GUATEMALA

2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hattula Moholy-Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Preliminary Conclusion ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Stone Monuments ◽  
Lowland Maya

Research on the Lowland Maya Hiatus that focuses solely on the inscriptions on monuments is too limited to provide information about its causes, nature, and consequences. I consider the hiatus at Tikal using additional evidence from architecture, settlement patterns, caches and burials, domestic artifacts, and inscriptions on portable objects. A preliminary conclusion is that Tikal's long hiatus can be regarded as part of a sequence of internal political development rather than due to conquest from outside. The displacement and destruction of inscribed and plain stone monuments was an ongoing phenomenon at Tikal. It was present from Terminal Preclassic times and occurred with increasing frequency until the beginning of the late Late Classic period. Monument destruction may have come to a halt then under a series of powerful rulers. The setting of inscribed stone monuments and wooden lintels continued for another two centuries until the disappearance of dynastic rule itself.

Obsidian Procurement and Distribution in the Tikal-Yaxha Intersite Area of the Central Maya Lowlands

1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anabel Ford ◽  
Fred Stross ◽  
Frank Asaro ◽  
Helen V. Michel
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Characterization ◽  
Source Area ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Residential Units ◽  
Preclassic Period ◽  
Characterization Studies ◽  
Lowland Maya

AbstractObsidian from known outcrops in the Mesoamerican highlands has been recovered from lowland Maya sites, providing significant evidence for long-distance procurement and local redistribution of obsidian by the ancient Maya. Prior chemical-characterization studies of obsidian from the lowland Maya area provide a foundation for the study of Tikal-Yaxha obsidian presented here. The samples used in this analysis came from middens associated with 12 residential units located between Tikal and Yaxha and dating from the Preclassic through Terminal Classic periods. The results of chemical sourcing of the Tikal-Yaxha samples generally lend support to current interpretations of changes in obsidian distribution and procurement in the central Maya lowlands. During the Preclassic period, most obsidian was imported from the San Martín Jilotepeque-Río Pixcaya source area. Obsidian from the El Chayal source predominated throughout the Classic period, although some Mexican Pachuca obsidian appeared in Early Classic contexts, and Ixtepepque obsidian was apparently restricted to the Terminal Classic period.

SET IN STONE: HIATUSES AND DYNASTIC POLITICS AT TIKAL, GUATEMALA

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hattula Moholy-Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Stone Monuments ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Dynastic Politics ◽  
Lowland Maya

AbstractStone stelae and altars inscribed with dates and bearing a portrait of the ruler they commemorate define the Classic period in the Maya lowlands. They attest to the ruling elite's awareness of history and its uses to assert their authority and legitimacy. The power of Maya history remains evident when text decipherments override archaeological evidence. Privileging of texts is especially problematic in interpretations of gaps or hiatuses in the sequence of dates on carved monuments as indicators of site-wide decline. Archaeological evidence from the Lowland Maya city of Tikal contradicts the assumption of general decline during its longest hiatus, as well as a widely accepted historical explanation of its cause. Placing stone monuments and their texts in past cultural context indicates gaps were more likely due to a venerable Mesoamerican tradition of monument desecration carried out by rival elite factions than to specific historical events.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document